United States v. Stewart

• Decision Date: 12 March 2012
• Docket Number: Case No. 10–20436.
• Citation: 839 F.Supp.2d 914
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Theodore Cooper STEWART, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan

839 F.Supp.2d 914

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff,

v.Theodore Cooper STEWART, Defendant.

Case No. 10–20436.

United States District Court,

E.D. Michigan,

Southern Division.

March 12, 2012.

Recognized as Unconstitutional

18 U.S.C.A. § 2256(8)(B, D)

Matthew A. Roth, U.S. Attorney's Office, Detroit, MI, for Plaintiff.

Andrew N. Wise, Federal Defender, Federal Defender Office, Detroit, MI, for Defendant.

OPINION AND ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR JUDGMENT OF ACQUITTAL OR A NEW TRIAL

DAVID M. LAWSON, District Judge.

The defendant was convicted by a jury in September 2010 of two counts of knowingly transporting child pornography in interstate commerce, 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(1). Before the Court is his timely-filed motion for a judgment of acquittaland for a new trial. While the motion was pending, the defendant sought the withdrawal of his counsel and the appointment of new counsel. The Court granted that request and permitted appointed defense counsel the opportunity to file a supplemental brief in support of the defendant's motion and to raise new issues in that brief.

The defendant advances the following grounds in support of his motion for a judgment of acquittal: (1) the government failed to present sufficient evidence to support his conviction or to demonstrate that he knew the images were lascivious, and (2) the indictment criminalizes conduct that is protected by the First Amendment because no children were harmed. The Court finds no merit in either of those arguments. The government has presented sufficient evidence on each element of the crime and persuasive precedent suggests that the jury reasonably may consider certain manipulations to an image (either in its taking or thereafter) to demonstrate that the images were lascivious or intended to elicit a sexual response. The Court will deny the motion for judgment of acquittal.

The defendant requests a new trial because (1) the Court improperly joined the two counts in the same trial, (2) the prosecutor committed misconduct by certain comments and demonstrative exhibits presented during closing arguments, (3) the jury instructions failed to define an identifiable minor and allowed the jury to convict the defendant of an offense that did not exist, (4) the Court improperly admitted Exhibits 15 and 16 in violation of the limited context test; (5) the government failed to publish the computer's hash value and performed an unfair investigation; and (6) the Court should have recognized a distinction between an emotional and a sexual response under the law. The Court finds no merit in arguments (1) through (3), (5), and (6). The defendant has failed to present any authority supporting the final two arguments. The defendant failed to object to joinder and the jury instructions prior to trial, and did not object at trial to the prosecutor's alleged misconduct with respect to statements made during closing arguments, and he cannot overcome the plain error standard the Court must apply to those issues. The defendant did object to the prosecutor's use of certain images during closing argument, but Sixth Circuit precedent suggests that the Court's curative instruction was sufficient to overcome any potential prejudice.

Argument (4) presents a closer question. The Sixth Circuit's limited context test allows additional images only of the same victims and explicitly excludes images of other victims. Exhibits 15 and 16 include hundreds of pictures of a variety of children (although none constitutes pornography), and it appears at first glance that their admission violates the limited context test, an error that the Sixth Circuit has described as highly prejudicial even under a plain error standard. However, the defendant stipulated to the admission of those exhibits during trial and has not explained to the Court which images he believes properly fall without the limited context test. It is impossible for the Court to determine whether the majority of those images involve the same victims as the charged images. Therefore, the Court will deny the motion because the defendant has failed to carry his burden of demonstrating that a new trial is warranted because the exhibits contained primarily images of other child victims. Therefore, the Court will deny the defendant's motion for a new trial.

I.

The facts are familiar to the parties and will be summarized briefly here. On May 12, 2009, defendant Theodore Cooper Stewart, an American ex-patriot, was traveling from Thailand, where he lived, to the United States and entered the country at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport via a flight from Japan. Customs and Border Patrol officer Marvin Steigerwald approached Stewart at the baggage carousel and found Stewart to be “standoffish and confrontational.” He referred Stewart to secondary inspection, where Steigerwald inspected the defendant's two laptop computers (a Sony VAIO and a Twinhead), digital camera, and three memory sticks. He found suspicious images suggestive of child pornography on the Sony computer but was unable to power up the Twinhead and called in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Special Agent Andre Young. Young decided to transport the Twinhead to local ICE headquarters in Detroit for forensic examination and detained both computers. The agents returned the digital camera and memory sticks to Stewart and informed him that he was free to go. At ICE headquarters, forensic analysts reported images of suspected child pornography on the Twinhead computer as well.

On January 26, 2009, a complaint was issued against the defendant and he made an initial appearance on August 7, 2009. The grand jury returned an indictment charging two counts of transportation of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(1) on September 8, 2009. Count I alleged that five images that appeared to have been downloaded from the Internet were child pornography, and count II alleged that eight photographs of children playing on a beach that had been cropped to focus on genitalia also were child pornography. After several continuances and a change in counsel, the defendant filed a motion to suppress evidence on February 5, 2010. The Court heard oral argument on March 18, 2010 and issued an opinion denying the motion to suppress on May 24, 2010. However, the time limit imposed by the Speedy Trial Act had elapsed, and the Court dismissed the case without prejudice on June 14, 2010.

A new complaint was issued the same date and the grand jury returned a new indictment charging the same two counts of child pornography transportation on July 13, 2010. After the Court denied motions in limine, the matter proceeded to trial on September 14, 2010. On September 16, 2010, after the government concluded its case in chief, the defendant made an oral motion for judgment of acquittal under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29, arguing that the government failed to present sufficient evidence that the charged images in count II were lascivious or that the images in count I involved minors, the charge of possession of potential young-adult pornography in count I raised First Amendment concerns, and the government failed to demonstrate that the defendant knew the images were lascivious. Trial Tr., vol. II, at 454–60. The Court denied that motion from the bench, finding that the government had presented sufficient evidence from which a jury could find that the defendant committed each element of the charged crime and that the images as cropped could be considered child pornography under the test in United States v. Brown, 579 F.3d 672 (6th Cir.2009). Trial Tr., vol. III, at 493.

After the proofs were concluded, the Court conducted a charge conference after presenting the parties with a draft of jury instructions compiled from submissions by each side. The defendant objected to the definition of sexually explicit conduct, arguing that the Court should have used the definitions in 18 U.S.C. §§ 2256(2)(a) and 2256(8)(A) & (C) rather than section 2256(2)(b). Trial Tr., vol. II, at 481–84. Both parties agreed that the Court should use the language in section 2256(2)(a), and the Court agreed to substitute those definitions into its jury instructions. Id. at 483. The defendant raised no other objections to the proposed jury instructions. Id. at 484; see also Trial Tr., vol. III, at 570 (lodging no objections at the close of the jury instructions).

During closing argument, the defendant objected to a government slideshow that allegedly used images of better quality and resolution than those introduced as exhibits or provided to defense counsel during pretrial discovery. Trial Tr., vol. II, at 468–69; Trial Tr., vol. III, at 520–25. The Court allowed the government to use the images and gave the jury a cautionary instruction to consider only the exhibits as evidence, not the images presented in closing arguments. Jury deliberations began on September 16 and proceeded to September 17. On September 16, 2010, the Court addressed a note from the jury concerning the definition of child pornography and whether all elements of this definition must be satisfied. Trial Tr., vol. III, at 571–73. The Court reinstructed the jury with the definition of child pornography as follows:

Child pornography is the visual depiction by film, video, computer-generated image and so forth, as mentioned in the instruction, where the production of the visual depiction involves the use of a minor engaged in sexually-explicit conduct, or such visual depiction has been created, adapted or modified to appear that an identifiable minor is engaging in sexually-explicit conduct. Those are the—that's the definition of child pornography.

Trial Tr., vol. III, at 575. The Court went on to clarify that the additional items in the jury instructions were intended to serve as definitions for the elements of child pornography and the jury was not limited to the factors listed in the instructions when making its determination of...